the politics of football ❀ the football of politics

A quick addendum to my fawning profile of Ivan Rakitić: Opta diagrams of his contribution in each of this season’s games thus far. Pictures show better than words ever can the full extent of Rakitić’s contribution at Sevilla.

His eyes were as wide as a dying squid’s. He was young and terrified and out of his depth. He had come on as a substitute and almost immediately abandoned his position. I seem to remember him drifting in from the…

A player lay crumpled in pain on the pitch as Kuku leapt up from the couch to scream at the television. Half the men on the pitch are native francophones and yet nobody is shrieking “déjà vu” louder than my…

It was early December in San Salvador. We had just checked into a shabby hotel room to escape the heat. The air conditioner was roaring. I was perched at the edge of the bed, drenched in sweat, staring at the…

I don’t follow Bloomberg. I consider it to be market porn, breathlessly conflating correlation with causation (“The Dow is up three tenths of a percent today on news that Apple has trademarked the color white. Asian stocks are down amid…

Saturday’s MLS Cup Final will be David Beckham’s last in a Galaxy shirt, capping five tumultuous seasons in the American league. According to MLS, importing the Englishman was intended to raise the profile of the league, entice “europhile” American soccer fans…

I’ve tried to avoid getting embroiled in the tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth that’s characterized the last 10 months of AFC Wimbledon fanhood, but after reading REPD’s latest match report, I feel like getting something off my chest….

Sergio Busquets is the man the English-speaking press likes to point to as an example of all that’s wrong with football. He is a magnet for criticism. Breathlessly derided as a cheat and defined by a moment of gamesmanship in…

After Iniesta’s masterclass performance against a Madrid side hellbent on destruction during this season’s first Clásico, someone actually said this: […] maybe if Ineista had scored a winning goal in a cl final like the volley from outside the box…

I know you’re angry at Luka. He wants to leave you and it hurts. Why wouldn’t it? Nobody likes being dumped. It’s not enough that he toyed with your emotions last season. Now he’s downing tools again. And after all…